Circular Economies Residency: Linda Tegg in Carnarvon #3

Jul 14

Linda Tegg is currently working with the community of Gwoonwardu/Carnarvon, hosted by Shire of Carnarvon. This residency is part of SPACED’s current regional residency program, SPACED 5: Circular Economies.

Tegg has been creating whirlpools for moths, way-finding at the tip and stargazing at Pelican Point and shares her reflections below.

The light has been left on in the bathroom overnight. Masses of moths gather around the light and the window. I turn off the light, remove the insect screen and slowly usher them out. They’re around three or four types. I work as gently as I can, trying to avoid marking the white walls with moth dust and whatever injury this encounter might cause the moth.

Something is spiralling in the pool; I head downstairs and see that it’s a moth swimming on the surface. I scoop it up and see that there are dozens more. Most of them are clinging to the tube of the creepy crawly; others have drowned, and occasionally one detaches and starts swimming in circles. I create my own kind of whirlpool to draw them towards me and begin to scoop them out relocating them to the garden bed.

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The Carnarvon Arboretum quietly holds the space between the airport and the town’s main thoroughfare. Lined by coolabah trees, it looks quite grey at first glance. But once you’re in there, you can see green tips emerging. It’s about to burst with life. I’ve been interested in this place since I first heard about it and now I’ve the chance to walk through with one of its founders, David Bauer. In the 1980s David hand-collected seeds around Carnarvon to establish this planting. Transforming a stretch of agricultural grass into a species-rich plant community bringing many of the plants that live in the region into the township. Each plant has a fascinating detail or story, so it takes us some time to work our way toward a small picnic shelter. I ask David about his career regenerating mine sites in the Pilbara and am amazed at the scale at which this type of healing can occur.

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As well as hosting the OTS Satellite Earth Station, Browns Range is also the location of the town tip. Spraypainted fridges act as way-finders. Driving around on the red sand tracks feels like navigating a wild canyon. Way above, a yacht appears to have washed up in a storm of household appliances. One of the team here suggests that we should sink it and make an artificial reef.

The birdlife has a strong presence. I return daily, trying to spot a giant kestrel that has been recently visiting. I see kites and ibis, but the crows are the most dominant. They possess this place, perching on their spots, then whipping up into magnificent formations across the sky before landing again.

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I caught a virus on my flight in, so I am socially distancing. Staying in a house built for the OTS trackers, my interest in satellites deepens. I download the supercluster app. There will be three Starlink launches today, two from California and one from Florida. This will expand the Starlink mega constellation to over 7400 satellites in Low Earth Orbit. I have wonderful phone calls with advocates of the dark sky movement, learning how light pollution jeopardises our relationship with the night sky. I spend hours diving into the details of the Starlink satellites online, my own Starlink connection facilitating all this curiosity.

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At the Space and Technology Museum, I watch ‘Cameras to Carnarvon’, a nine-minute film documenting the first television link from Australia to the UK. A line of link-up trucks drove up from Perth’s television stations to facilitate a telecast between Carnarvon and London. Making television history, British migrants living in Carnarvon were connected to their relatives in England; conversations across over thirteen thousand kilometres were broadcast live from a BBC studio.

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I’ve driven to the research station but can’t find the TAFE students anywhere. The crop they planted last time I was here has come along; pumpkins trail off in every direction and a mass of butterflies moves between all the blooms. The more I look, the more butterflies I see. I start noticing this more and more around the town. Entire bougainvillaea’s teeming with butterflies.

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Traditional Owner Rennee Turner and I meet briefly; we walk down to the Fascine as the sun sets. Through her business, Wooramulla Journeys, Rennee shares sky culture through tours along the coast. I hope to join a tour one day. We talk about our interests in the night sky and arrange to meet again. Weeks later, an article on space junk orbiting Earth prompts an hour-long phone call.

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In the ‘Take one, leave one’ bookshelf outside the Toyworld, I see ‘The Guinness Book of Records Book of Astronomy Facts and Feats’ – eighties nostalgia in high concentration. I decide to return with ‘First Knowledges Astronomy, Sky Country’, a book I travelled up here with by Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli, to switch out the books. But I must read it one more time. Before I’m ready to make the switch, the Guinness Book moves on.

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Traditional Owner Raymond Edney and I spend a couple of hours at Pelican Point as the stars come up over the Indian Ocean. The moonlight is intense, and we cast hard shadows across the beach. To the west, a curious light coming and going, I work toward capturing it with my new interest in astrophotography. Moving fast, the satellites form fine lines in the image in contrast to the points of light made by the stars. The satellites only last five years. They’re only 500km above us. We talk about going back to Bush Bay when I return, perhaps on the waning moon when the stars will be clearer. I think of the seagrass drift that I bogged the car in, and the marine meadow beyond that.

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Image: David Bauer and Linda Tegg at the Carnarvon Arboretum, photo: Rochelle O’Brien. Crows fly over the tip, Butterflies at the research station, Take one, leave one, Streak in the Sky. Photos courtesy of the Artist

More information about the Circular Economies artists, host communities and projects as they unfold can be found by subscribing to SPACED’s monthly email newsletter, and following SPACED on Facebook and Instagram.

Learn more about Linda Tegg.

Circular Economies is produced as a joint partnership by PICA - Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and SPACED.